I Am the Captain of My Soul

By Edward Greger

The proceeds of this book will be given to hungry children in Haiti, Jamaica, and Honduras.
Although I write an autobiography, the leitmotif of the work is love and hateagape love, purified love, the love that emanates from the Godhead, not the meretricious and salacious emotion of the secular masses. I show how Satan can surreptitiously gain entrance to the unsuspecting soul. The Satan of whom I speak is not a myth, a comedic figure dressed in red, carrying a huge fork, seeking someone to devour. No, he is an actuality. He is as real as your good angel. His purpose is to control your will, to limit your freedom, and to lead you to perdition. I show you the secret of happinessdeep, joyous happiness anchored in Jesus Christ and leading you to eternal salvation. I point out to you how to live according to biblical injunctions in order to achieve a personal relationship with Jesus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504915502

Edward Greger

I was born in Philadelphia, in 1921, and attended primary and secondary schools there. I received a BA from St. Mary’s College in Norwalk, Connecticut. My major was philosophy, my minor theology. I have an MA from Villanova University in Modern Drama, and I completed the requirements for a PhD, except for the thesis, in Old English at Lehigh University. I taught Latin, French, and English for forty-four years in private and public schools, starting my teaching career with the Jesuits in Philadelphia. I married but had no children. My wife died from ovarian cancer in 1986. I have lived celibate since that time.

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© 2015 Edward Greger. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/11/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1549-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1548-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1550-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015908866

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Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by HYPERLINK "http://www.ncccusa.org/newbtu/permiss.html \o RSV permission" permission.

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1 FIRST IMPRESSIONS

CHAPTER 2 THE FORMATIVE YEARS

CHAPTER 3 MY MOTHER’S CALVARY

CHAPTER 4 THE HOUSE OF HORRORS

CHAPTER 5 THE YEARS IN THE SEMINARY

CHAPTER 6 LIFE AFTER THE SEMINARY

CHAPTER 7 LIVING IN A DECADENT WORLD

CHAPTER 8 THE MACHINATIONS OF SATAN

CHAPTER 9 DEMONIC POSSESSION; AN EVER PRESENT DANGER

CHAPTER 10 AGAPE LOVE TURNED TO HATE

PROLOGUE

I have always been impressed by the shocking opening of Billy Wilders’ Sunset Boulevard. Bill Holden is seen face down floating in a swimming pool, a memorable image. The novelty of a film beginning at the end intrigued me so much that I intend to shamelessly pilfer his ingenuity and begin at the end. In beginning at the end I create for the reader a chaotic anachronistic world for we enter a time capsule that confuses present past and future and demands a suspension of credulity, as we cascade in the turbulence of tragic and portentous events, the leitmotif of which is the problem of evil.

I have advanced prostate cancer and now colon cancer. Therefore, death is imminent. I have no fear of death. Why should I fear death, when so many emoluments and honorariums beckon to me? There, I will meet Jesus Christ, his Virgin Mother, Mary, his wonderful saints, too numerous to number, my mother and loved ones and the joy of my earthly life, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, whom I have come to love, so dearly, after spending ten days in Lisieux where she was raised and died.

For ten years, after my return, I barricaded myself in my cocoon, and studied her life intensely. She infused me with an intimate knowledge of agape love, of her Little Way.

In that celestial life, I will meet the mighty envoys of God, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their like. They will recognize me by the Mezuzah on the doorpost of my apartment, for the last twenty one years. I will walk through their midst, waving to the prophets and the wise men who heralded Christ’s coming. My eyes will dart, here and there, searching for a glimpse of David and the Psalmists who filled my lifetime with joy for, while jogging, I memorized thirty-four Psalms. Thus, in talking to God, I can now praise him in the golden dialogue of the Psalmists, the idiom of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost; a supernal communication.

I will speak of love, of genuine love, of agape love, Godly love. I will contrast it to the gaudy, meretricious and sordid emotions that Hollywood calls love, the Dinner and Bed encounter, which signifies nothing, while transmitting a venereal disease. I will show that true happiness, in this life, is possible only by conforming to God’s will, that true love can be found only through Jesus, that a stable Christian marriage can be sustained, only by having a personal relationship with Jesus.

I will speak of hate, the enemy of love; hate as I see it, a disturbing troubling reality which has baffled men from the beginning of time. Why do bad things happen to good people, asks Rabbi Harold S. Kushner? I ask why good things happen to bad people. The human mind can comprehend love, because love generates from a loving God, but it is incapable of comprehending this dark reality of evil. Like electricity, it is all around us; we see its brutality in the murders of innocent people throughout the world, in the massive slaughter of aborted babies. It plagues our exterior; it tortures our interior. Lady Macbeth cries, Out damn spot! but it continues to haunt her. We spend our entire life trying to avoid it.

I, at least, have the wisdom to identify it; not a victory, but it separates me from the baffled naïve who, battered and torn, in a whirlwind of consternation, refuse to face the reality of evil. It is Satan, not the innocent comedic figure, arrayed in red and lampooned in comic scripts, but a thriving reality, a creature of God’s creation who, in pride, rebelled against God. I will recount the terrible blow that he delivered me late in my life, how he changed agape love, to satanic hate and I will ask you, dear reader, to explain the unfathomable.

This account of my life will also be a peon of praise to the Chosen People of God, who brought the Lamb to me; to the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who sustained my dear mother, over the Depression years, in that densely orthodox Hasidic ghetto of central Philadelphia. It can be said that they raised the Greger family. It is, in honoring my mother, that I must honor them. I have, in a sense, by osmosis, shared her love for the Jewish people, in general, and those poor Jewish merchants, in particular, who were so generous to her, during her years of need. It will also be a lamentation for the millions of Jews, slaughtered in concentration camps whose hideous deaths fatally scarred the conscience of the ages. Like the Ancient Mariner, I must promulgate their plight.

I believe that most of the world’s troubles result from a lack of communication. We have misunderstandings among friends, among husbands and wives, among nations, because people do not understand one another, because they do not listen to one other, because they do not recognize the nuances in words which convey precise meanings, but most importantly because they wear Masks and walk in darkness. How much misery we could avoid, if only we could communicate honestly and sincerely.

CHAPTER 1

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

My wife, Alice, maintained that everyone wears a mask: that behind this protective shield, they are able to conceal their moral, physical and spiritual limitations. The fear, behind the fear, is that some guileless character, like me, would come along and savagely rip off the mask, exposing their frailties. She considered me a danger to her, and to humanity, because I was guileless. She claimed that she had never met anyone without guile; anyone who does not wear a mask. She predicted that people would perceive me, as a threat, and shun me. She said that my life would be replete with misunderstands, as a consequence. She was so right.

At that time, John Powell S.J. wrote a book, Why I Am Afraid to Tell You Who I Am, a best seller. Coming home from work, one day, Alice tossed the book onto the table where I was studying and said: Why didn’t you write this book? We could have had some money. This is all that you have been preaching over the years. Playing on the same theme, Powel later followed with Why Am I Afraid to Love, and Eric Berne with The Games People Play, added to the pastime of self-analysis.

Lying lips are repellant to the Lord, Proverbs 12: 22, so that when you lie for any reason whatsoever, you are walking with Satan, for the devil is a liar and the father of lies, John 8:44. Those who wear masks are, of necessity, liars, for their modus operandi is equivocation, ambiguity, and mental reservation. I would assume this is Satan’s favorite gate of entrance into man’s soul. Lying is so appealing to all of us.

Once Satan possesses your soul, he hardens your heart and thrusts you into darkness; you are going up a down elevator, your prayers, devotions are not reaching Jesus, because Jesus is not in darkness. You are now a spiritual casualty, and do not realize it, because you have been insensitized by the culture. Your condition affirms that you are immature, for, if you were mature, you would recognize your entrapment. Pride is in the driver’s seat and frustrates your every attempt to rise above your spiritual blindness: they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Eph.4:18.

Now you must mobilize the graces, at your disposal, to beg the Holy Spirit to give you the humility to crush this pride. You must come out of the darkness and into the light. Your battle will be difficult, because the present day Catholic has amalgamated with the pagan world, accepting its values and following its guidelines. That is the world of darkness. You must exit it. You must walk in the light. Only then will you overcome pride.

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. But will have the light of life. John 8:12.

Jesus said, Known the truth and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32. You cannot be made free hiding behind a mask. The fear that people will learn some unpleasant facts about you, if you are completely honest, is a satanic stratagem. You must recognize this, and thwart his efforts. It is impossible to have a meaningful relationship with another human being, if you wear a mask. It is a ridiculous concept to think that you can relate to God, in that fashion, to God who knows our innermost thoughts.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Jeremiah 1:5. God knows your heart; what this world honors is detestable in the sight of God. Luke 11:15.

On the secular level, I have always loved the poem Invictus, by William Ernest Henley:

"It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul."

The conviction that I must persevere seemed innate, so that I was naturally attracted by the Greek Myth of Sisyphus, who shared my survival instincts. Old Sisyphus was condemned, for eternity, to push a big rock to the top of the hill, only to see it roll down again. I loved his enforced determination which later would fortify me in the spiritual life, for the myth demonstrates the power of the will in regulating our emotions, in controlling our lives.

While on summer break from the seminary, I learned through, Bill Conners, an old friend of the Greger family who was teaching at a Jesuit high school that there was an opening. I applied and was hired. That year, I lived with Aunt Stella, my father’s sister, close to downtown Philadelphia. I had no car. I was forced to take out a one hundred dollar loan from the bank, in order to buy a suit for the coming scholastic year. I fit very well in the Jesuit system of teaching, except for the first year. As June approached, one of my fellow teachers asked me if I was ready for the Province Exams. What are the Province Exams, I innocently asked?

I learned that the Province Exam was a competitive exam, among several Jesuit high schools in adjacent states. Classes were matched according to levels, for example, all A classes against A Section students, and D classes against D section students. The teachers of these students were being evaluated, although, ostensibly, that was not the purpose of the exam. My classes bombed. I remember, in particular, one question that nearly all of my students missed. What is the verse meter in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar"? The answer: Iambic Pentameter. My classes finished low.

Fortunately, I was not fired. At the end of the year, I went into the office, asked for and was given copies of the exams for the past ten years. From that point, my classes scored exceedingly high; my D Sections, often, outscoring A classes. When my wife, for economic reasons, urged me to leave after six years, the Principal, made every effort to persuade me to remain. I was a born Jesuit teacher. Like the expression I often used later, We fit. I left to go into the Public School System, but my heart remained at St. Joseph’s Prep.

It was, at the Prep, that I touched the wings of fame. I taught Latin to John Foley, a brilliant young man who knew as much of the language as I. It was necessary to be wary. He invited me to his Consecration as bishop in Philadelphia. Later, he would become a Cardinal of the Church, and a narrator of Vatican affairs for EWTN. I wrote him a congratulatory letter which he acknowledged, with some warm memories of his own.

Then, there was John Bateman that slender young man, who as Henry Gibson, on the show Laugh In with a flower in hand, and a vacuous stare, recited in monotonic cadence, a humorous ditty. He later appeared in movies. John was a funny guy in class. I was not surprised by his choice of a career.

And last, but not least as they are wont to say, there was Joe Graedon from New Hope Solebury High School who became internationally known in the pharmaceutical field. Mrs. Graedon, Joe’s mother and I held frequent conferences concerning Joe’s progress in the French language. She was a very caring mother and a great motivator. Joe and I renewed our acquaintance a few years ago.

I started teaching in the public school system in 1954. On August the 20th 1955, the great flood year, the Delaware River overflowed its banks. By chance, my wife and I bought tickets to the Playhouse, a second-banana haven for jaded Hollywood actors and actresses, an oasis for rejuvenating a fading career. It drew large crowds from New York and the Pocono regions. The waters had not touched Main Street, the location of our apartment. We walked to the theatre and walked home. The signs of destruction were ominous, but the monster was not yet ready to devour the multitudes.

We sat in the last seats, in the back row of the theatre. There were people sitting in the first seats; a vast ocean of emptiness between us, between the haves and the have nots. My wife and I always chose the cheap, over the expensive; she, out of a sense of penury, inhered from the Great Depression and I, from my monachal vow of poverty, taken after the Novitiate. The people up front turned back to look at us, and conscious of the comical aspects of such a setting, waved us to come forward. We, the hoi poilloi, were honored to sit with the aristocrats.

The curtain opened precisely at the designated time. The play A Palm Tree in a Rose Garden. The actors were ready to perform, as if there was standing room only, and perform they did, with the intensity of an opening night on Broadway. Of course, the applause was not deafening.

We lived in a second-floor apartment, over a doctor’s office. When the waters arrived we had to be evacuated by boat. This strange visitor glided into the apartment, touching the top step, at the second floor level. We, gingerly, boarded and were wafted out to the street, comfortably clearing the parking meters. We spent that night at the home of a fellow teacher.

I loved teaching. I often said I would teach for room and board, so much was I enamored of the profession. I delighted in observing the student acquire knowledge or a skill as a result of my efforts. In a sense, I was creating. It was in teaching that the embryo of my Pygmalion ambition took root. Pygmalion was a Greek sculptor who fell in love with the female statue he had created. The idea of transforming a less than perfect person into a noble, admirable person, has always been one of my dreams.

As an adult, I rarely went to movies. Yet when the Turner Classic Movie channel features, My Fair Lady, I will view it again and again. That crude cockney flower girl, who is presented as a polished gem in the Queen’s Court, has such an irresistible fascination for me that I have to see it once more.

I graduated from grammar school with the equivalent of a sixth grade education, for my seventh and eighth grade years were an accumulation of absences to care for my mother. After losing three years in a Tuberculosis sanitarium, I started high school at the age of eighteen, which made little impact on the students around me because of my frail physical condition. I received a BA from St. Mary’s Seminary, in Philosophy and a minor in Theology.

I studied in the following Universities: St Joseph’s, Temple, Rutgers, Hamilton, in New York State, Rennes in France and Laval in Quebec; all eclectic. I have an MA in Modern Drama, from Villanova University and fall short of a PhD, in Old English, from Lehigh University, by failing to write my thesis. At that point, effete, after having studied for years, now, as an aged professional scholar, I